INDIAN FESTIVAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1929, Page 3

INDIAN FESTIVAL

HOSE TURNED ON RULER Festivals are times of great gaiety in the Indian Native States, but perhaps the merriest is at the spring solstice, when scenes recalling the festivals of ancient lords of misrule are often witnessed (writes a special correspondent in the ‘Morning Post’). The ruler and his high officers pass through the city; not clad in silks and jewelb as at other festivals, but in pl.ain white garments. Ruler and Ministers alike sit on elephants, all furnished with a plentiful supply of coloured water and of talc bells containing a bright pink powder. From the moment when the procession enters the city it becomes the target of good-humoured chaff, of missiles filled With pipk liquid, and of bucketfuls of scarlet paint. At corners the ruler and his suite are subjected to a heavy cross-fire from the rooftops oil either side, and their garments and every visible portion of their person spoil partake of the pink hue which is associated with the festival.

All the Stat© servants, Englishmen and Indians alike, partake of the fun. At one point, the Public Works Department, forgetting for the moment its customary cares, has erected a formidable barrier enfiladed by a number of the municipal fire engines. Nothing daunted the procession presses forward in the teeth of a veritable deluge. The ruler and his high officers pre almost washed off their elephants; but they press through, and, thanks to the skilful use of their own missies, disconcert their antagonists, passing on their way amidst a storm of laughter and applause. It is on such occasions as these that even the outsider can penetrate a little into the real spirit of an Indian State. The people feel themselves at one with their ruler, who is theirs and theirs alone. He shares their sorrows as well as their joys; to him they look for the redress of grievances when all ordinary means have been exhausted. He throws himself ‘ with zest into their amusements; he understands their life as they understand his. There is little wonder, when such conditions prevail, that the political solidarity of the States is so strong. Communal differences, despite their seriousness in British India, cause comparatively little anxiety in an Indian State. For the ruler and his government are the-living enbodiment of a tradition which binds togetheiruler and rple(l with a tie which is almost that of his family. /